"Obesity and Selected Health Outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Role of Regulatory Institutions "

This study examines how regulatory institutions moderate obesity to influence health outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The system generalized method of moment estimation technique was applied to a panel data spanning the period 2005-2019 for twenty-six (26) SSA countries. Diabetes prevalence, mortality due to cardiovascular diseases and life expectancy at birth were employed as health outcomes in the study. The findings indicate that regulatory institutions moderate the negative impact of obesity on the selected health outcomes and promote health. In fact, regulatory institutions alone as measured by the rule of law do not have any significant effect on health outcomes. However, when rule of law is interacted with obesity, it reduces diabetes prevalence and death due to cardiovascular diseases by 0.008 and 0.13 percentage points respectively. In addition, when regulatory institutions moderate obesity, it improves life expectancy by 0.09 year over the study period. The study suggests that government regulatory institutions in SSA should be equipped with the necessary tools and legislation to enable them perform their functions diligently. The institutions should also be given the requisite resources to ensure periodic institutional review of performance all aimed at improving health outcomes.